God Wants To Use Your Story

Stories, they create within us emotions that no other medium can produce. They ignite a passion and a desire to live a great life. One that impacts the earth. A good story gives us hope that our own lives can be full of purpose, adventure, and meaning. What is it about humanity that every person has this same desire? To throw off the mundane and play an irreplaceable role in this world. This is a beautiful factor formed into the very DNA of mankind. It is a God given desire and He wants to fulfill it. God is in the process of finishing the greatest love story that we will ever know. We are wrapped up in the midst of this great story and He wants to use us in it. Many people however feel disqualified by their pasts. That they have made to many mistakes or do not have what it takes to make the cut. This may be the greatest lie that we ever believe. This was the greatest lie that I believed.

Growing up I loved to dance. It filled my heart with such a joy and freedom. I loved the challenge in it all. How you had to go beyond what even you thought was possible to create something that mesmerized and captivated people. I loved the freedom to express without the need of words. I longed to dance forever. That was my plan and my dream. Up to that point I had poured my heart into this passion. I truly thought it was possible. When I was 17 I went to New York for a summer dance intensive. That is where my dream slowly faded to a negative, exhausted, condemning nightmare. For three long weeks I began to realize that I was not good enough in any sense of the word. That was it. At 17 years old I was already not enough. At this point I had been desperately trying to understand how to hear Gods voice. I was not confident in my abilities of hearing Him, but still I prayed and God responded. He told me that if I wanted to dance He would bless me in it, but He had more for me. I decided to take a break from dance to find the “more” He was talking about. However everything quickly overtook me. Anxiety, depression, hopelessness, it surrounded every moment of my day. My self worth had been so tied up in dance that once it was gone I felt so incredibly lost. I felt as though that had been the only thing of value about my life. I was not very good at anything else, I had always felt incredibly dumb, and my constant comparison left me incapable of dreaming. I couldn’t see past my own pain and it got to the place where I no longer wanted to live if this is what life would be like. Desperate for something I cried out to God in church one night. I told Him that I would do anything He wanted me to do even if I didn’t want to do it. God made it very clear in the next two days that I should go do a DTS (Discipleship Training School) in YWAM. I applied the same week. My DTS completely changed my life. God transformed me from the inside out. It was there that I realized that I didn’t need to be good enough because God loved me no matter what and that love was a gift that couldn’t be earned. The heavy weight of condemnation and failure washed away. From then on God has been so lovingly drawing me deeper into greater freedom.

My story is one of redemption and victory. Without allowing God’s power to transform my life, I doubt that I would now be a missionary in Los Angeles helping to fight human trafficking and discipling young people from all over the world. God has won the war over death but there is still a battle being waged each day for your heart. There have been countless moments in my life where the enemy has come to wreak havoc and steal away any chance of me living out my calling. However because of the foundations that I built in my DTS and the countless decisions after that to give God lordship over my life, I have come to live in victory. I am sharing this part of my life because I believe so deeply in the power of peoples stories and Gods redemption. It is something that He offers to us all. No matter what life has thrown at you, God has a plan to redeem the ashes of your life and produce something beautiful that can be used to call others home. Our redeemed stories bring glory to God and hope to a hurting world. We cannot go back and change our pasts, but we do have the ability to alter what the end of our story will look like. Take the first step towards a redeemed story by doing a DTS. Give the author of humanity six months and allow Him to rewrite your story into one of epic proportions.